Sala's Gift: My Mother's Holocaust Story

The Center for Jewish Studies at Queens College Jewish Lecture Series

Free! Open to the Public Sala’s Gift: My Mother’s Holocaust Story Dean Ann Kirschner, CUNY Macaulay Honors College

Monday, April 27, 2015 | 7:15pm | Rosenthal Library 230

Since time immemorial the parent- Ann Kirschner is the author of Sala’s child relationship has influenced each Gift, which has been published in seven of our lives; this is particularly true as languages. Her most recent publication we speak of the “Second Generation,” (2014) is Lady at the OK Corral: The children born to Holocaust Survivors. True Story of Josephine Marcus Earp An extraordinary example of this (the common-law wife of Wyatt Earp). relationship is Sala, nee Garncarz, She is Dean of the William E. Macaulay Honors and her daughter, Ann Kirschner. For College of the City University of New York, whose almost a half-century Sala was silent. young alumni include Rhodes Scholars as well as Then, just prior to heart surgery, she gave her daughter rapidly advancing scientists, scholars, and artists. As 350 letters she had written and received from family an entrepreneur in media and technology, she has led and friends while interned in seven labor camps in start-up teams that have shifted business models and Poland, Germany, and Czechoslovakia, safeguarding technologies. She launched NFL Sunday Ticket for the letters throughout. In breaking the silence, the lives the National Football League and created NFL.com. of both mother and daughter would change, as would A pioneer in online education, she founded Fathom a piece of history. Paying tribute to her mother and her in partnership with Columbia University, the London mother’s intuitive understanding of documentation, School of Economics, and other leading institutions. Dr. Kirschner, through those letters and historical Dr. Kirschner received her PhD in English literature research, describes how Sala kept contact with her from Princeton, after earning an MA from the family under the most dire circumstances. In her book University of Virginia and BA from SUNY–Buffalo. and lecture, Ann Kirschner reconstructs the history of the Jewish experience in the Sosnowiec area of Poland, The Annual Yom HaShoah Lecture, this program is and in particular her mother’s ordeal, and explores endowed by Marvin and Celina Zborowski. the intricate relationship of the “First and Second Generation” within the context of the Holocaust. The lecture will be accompanied by a multimedia presentation with images of the original letters, documents, and photographs.

Free parking is available in Lot #14 or #5 on the campus.